Brigg BomberEuropean Championships 2023!

A great day was had by all in Brigg at the World European Championships, we were blessed with warm sunshine though quite a brisk breeze on the bike course. The numbers were on the low side but it was good too see Quadrathletes coming over from Hungary, Spain and Belgium!

Lincsquad organized the race in great style, the course was very well signed, with plenty of encouraging marshals along the way, considering they are a small Club these days they really did us Proud so a big thanks must go to them for hosting the Championships, and giving our Quadrathletes a fabulous day out!

The standard of racing was excellent, and with the Team from Belgium in the mix it made it very exciting to watch. Ferenc Csima (HUN), Nick Verduyckt (BEL), Team Belgium, Mat Stephenson (GBR), William Peters (BEL) were all fairly close after the swim and bike, with Francisco Jose Lopes Perez (ESP) and our top GB athletes, Nigel Unwin, Oli Fairbairn, Jules Taylor and back after a long break Keith Longney were not far behind. The kayak leg certainly sorted the mix out with Ferenc taking a good lead, the Belgiums were all paddling fast with Francisco catching and Mat going into the run just slightly behind . As they moved onto the run the top 5 had sorted themselves out. But there was a battle further down the field between our other top age groupers, Nigel came in 2nd GB athlete, with Oli in 3rd overtaking Jules in 4th and Keith in 5th. There were plenty of other great results further down the field with our BQA Members certainly doing us proud!

The Belgium Team did the fastest time of the day 02:32:01, but with only 48 seconds to spare … a superb effort from our European Champion Ferenc!

Sadly there were only 5 ladies racing (injuries had stopped a few of our regular athletes from racing). However Gilian Melia put up a good fight to stay in contention, but Helen was going well and managed to hold her off she had a comfortable win in the end. Liz Dawson worked hard throughout to take 3rd. New to our sport was Grace Bird, she did very well, as she is new to kayaking. Our lovely BQA member Caz Jones certainly had the biggest smile of the day as she came over the finish line. It was the longest race she’d ever done, and a fantastic personnel achievement for her, we were all so proud cheer her over the finish line!